Metu Jfa Guide for the Preparation of Visual Materials
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METU JFA GUIDE FOR THE PREPARATION OF VISUAL MATERIALS METU Journal of the Faculty of Architecture is published biannually both in print and online. For the printed version that is published with offset publishing technique, the visual materials are required to have specific dimensions and qualities. These measures that are related to technical properties of offset printing may seem to cause some limitations on behalf of the authors, but they are compulsory for printing. At the Journal of the Faculty of Architecture the standard is determined as a minimum of 10 cm width and a resolution of 300 dpi (ppi) (or width at least 1200 pixels) in accordance with the format of the Journal. The visual materials are required to be presented in tiff file format. Below some principles and helpful information are given in order to guide the authors to prepare their visual materials properly. RESOLUTION By explaining the issue that is most relevant to us at the beginning, we are hoping to make this guide clearer. It can be supposed that in a digital photograph a certain amount of image is stored. Thus, in a 1 inch x 1 inch area of a photograph, there are a certain number of dots or pixels (image points). The quality of the photograph is based on the amount of information stored. If your have a digital photo that you want to use in your paper, how can you know whether it has the required resolution? Figure 1. How do the dimensions change in different resolutions? METU JFA GUIDE FOR VISUAL MATERIALS 1 First of all you have to use an image processing program*. There 1 inch 300 pixels are a number of licenced and free programs that can be used for this purpose with “Adobe Photoshop” as the most common one. In almost all of these it is possible to follow a similar route. For example in Adobe Photoshop, within the image menu, image size tab provides you the necessary information. When you examine the 300 pixels photo you want to use with image size and see data as in Figure 1, it means that image size is 623x381 pixels. 1 inch When set to a resolution of 100 dpi, dimensions will be seen as 15,82cm x 9,68cm (100x100 pixels in 1 inch x 1 inch will give the size above.) When set to 300 ppi, the dimensions will be 5,27 cm x 3,23 cm. Therefore, in order to be printed at the Journal, the maximum size available seems to be 5,27 cm x 3,23 cm. And this size is rather small and can only be used in a visual material without details. * Adobe photoshop, GIMP, PhotoPlus SE, If we would like to use this on a computer screen, then 72 dpi Splashup, FotoFlexer, PhotoLine, Sea- would be sufficient. A material with a resolution of 72 dpi could shore, Artweaver, Krita, Pixen, PhotoFiltre, PaintStar, Pixia, Active Pixels, ChocoFlop, be used with the dimensions of 21,98 cm x 13,44 cm. Thus, a visual Photo Pos Lite, CinePaint, Xara Xtreme... image that can be insufficient for print, can seem to be fine on a computer screen. However, this generally misleads the authors. Therefore, when we set the image resolution as 300 dpi (without marking the resample image box), we can see which size the image can be used. What we have to consider here is that, when we change the resolution of the photo, the number of pixels do not change. It means that the information on the photo is constant, and changing this would not make the photo better. Based on the fact that the number of pixels are constant, for the ones who are not familiar to image processing programs, another method may be suggested. The pixel information for each image may be seen in many operating systems. For example in Windows operating Figure 2. Here the given information is system, when you select a photo file in a folder, pixel information is that image is jpeg and has dimensions of given right under the window: 2362x1575 pixels. The size of the photo seen in Figure 2 is 2362 x 1575 pixels. Here, by Table 1. By looking at the pixel size in examining Table 1, the size of the photo in 300 dpi can be seen. 300 dpi resolution, it is possible to see the size it can be printed. Actually since This dimension will correspond to slightly over 2200 x 1400 pixels at dpi means dot per inch, if we used the the table. Therefore, it can be seen that the visual material may be measurement unit as inch, 100 pixels printed at the size of 18,63 cm x11,85 cm. This is a quite sufficient would be 1200/300=4 inch at 300 dpi. This is 10,16 cm as seen in the table. piksel 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000 2200 2400 1200 10,16x10,16cm 10,16x11,85cm 10,16x13,55cm 10,16x15,24cm 10,16x16,93cm 10,16x18,63cm 10,16x20,32cm 1400 11,85x10,16cm 11,85x11,85cm 11,85x13,55cm 11,85x15,24cm 11,85x16,93cm 11,85x18,63cm 11,85x20,32cm 1600 13,55x10,16cm 13,55x11,85cm 13,55x13,55cm 13,55x15,24cm 13,55x16,93cm 13,55x18,63cm 13,55x20,32cm 1800 15,24x10,16cm 15,24x11,85cm 15,24x13,55cm 15,24x15,24cm 15,24x16,93cm 15,24x18,63cm 15,24x20,32cm 2000 16,93x10,16cm 16,93x11,85cm 16,93x13,55cm 16,93x15,24cm 16,93x16,93cm 16,93x18,63cm 16,93x20,32cm 2200 18,63x10,16cm 18,63x11,85cm 18,63x13,55cm 18,63x15,24cm 18,63x16,93cm 18,63x18,63cm 18,63x20,32cm 2400 20,32x10,16cm 20,32x11,85cm 20,32x13,55cm 20,32x15,24cm 20,32x16,93cm 20,32x18,63cm 20,32x20,32cm 2 METU JFA GUIDE FOR VISUAL MATERIALS Figure 3. If the visual quality of a visual size for print. Since Table 1 shows the dimension interval that can document is evaluated as insufficient, be used for the METU Journal of the Faculty of Architecture, it is resampling the image or enlarging in any important for the authors to check whether their visual materials fall other way does not solve the problem of resolution. Also if you have found out that within this interval. the quality of an image you want to use is not suitable, enlarging it does not make RESAMPLING IMAGE it convenient for print. Above a 72 dpi image on the left has been made 300 dpi Another mistake that recurs quite often is trying to enlarge an while the resample image box is marked insufficient image using the image size menu or some other and it resulted in a blurred image. programs. Resizing the image after marking the resample image box does not increase the existing information on the image, but only adds similar pixels around the ones at the image and enlarge it artificially. Although the image that is obtained with this method is larger, since it is produced by stretching the smaller one, it results in a blurred image*. IMAGE SIZE IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE PROPERTY OF THE IMAGE Here we may consider whether printing the image at its dimensions at 300 dpi is sufficient, based on the level of detail the image contains. For example, the visual material at Figure 4 on the left was published at the journal at a size of 4,8 cm x 7 cm . This size may be insufficient for a photo containing lots of details, but enough for revealing the details of the object on the particular photo. However, in order to provide some flexibility for the page layout of the journal, it is always important to keep the width of the photo at a minimum of 10 cm. While 72 dpi resolution may be sufficient on a computer screen, images that are obtained from the internet may not always be * In some cases a file that is obtained enough for printing purposes.** That is because in order to keep from the internet or some other source the file size small, large files are not preferrably used on the internet. may be enlarged by resampling. In order to see if this is the case, you may Thus, a photo with a size of 20x20 cm on internet (at 72 dpi) can examine the image in ‘actual size’ in be as small as 5x5 cm (300dpi) in print which prevents the transfer image processing programs or windows of the required information. The same problem can occur with the image viewer and check if the image is images obtained by screen capture. Especially maps and plans clear. like the ones in Figure 4 with legend information can in now way transfer any information at a width of 5 cm no matter how clear ** Information on the visual material on they seem to be at the screen. However, a photo like the one in the internet is about the visual quality. The issue of copyright is discussed in the Figure 5 showing a detail of a texture would be used at a 5 cm author guideline of the journal. column, no matter how big the original file is. METU JFA GUIDE FOR VISUAL MATERIALS 3 Figure 4. Based on the content, it is possible to convey enough information Resampling can be useful only if you have a very large image with a small image (left) and not enough at hand because a large picture will also have a large file information even at 10 cm width in a size that will cause delays and problems during the uploading detailed image with legend (right).